“Would they allow new art in there? If they say no, do you have any other spaces that will draw the right people for the initial show?”
“Well, yes, think of the Michelangelo Sacristy where all the tourists go; there’s no space in there. What’s odd about my father’s idea is that he wants the painting to be put right in the main chapel for a month or so. I can’t imagine that happening, but nothing stops my father when he really wants something. He has some cards to play with the Medici, no doubt.”
“Well I hope his meeting goes well. Watch out, Armando, you might return to the fold.”
He laughed. “I don’t think so. During the Renaissance, the Medici were either heretics or atheists, or both, just like our whole family.”
As David strode up the tower to Lorenzo’s office, Gaudí’s high energy pulsed in his pineal gland. He walked into Lorenzo’s office with a serious expression. “Hello, Lorenzo. It’s good of you to see me again.”
“So good to see you again, David,” Lorenzo said taking his hand. I’ve thought so often about our first session. I’m really happy you’ve come again.”
David glanced at the table behind the analyst couch and noticed the crystal cylinder was not there; in its place there was an 11-inch crystal obelisk. “Ah, I see you have another crystal, an obelisk. Did you tune in to me before I came today?”
“I usually tune in to clients before they come; in your case, I had to, since you accessed such a high and intense lifetime. I have to watch out for inflation—you becoming entranced with your past and avoiding your current problems. You plan to go to Barcelona to visit some of Gaudí’s works as soon as possible, so you could airlift yourself right out of your normal life. Today, I think we should access the previous life of yours that most affected Gaudí in his lifetime. Are you willing?”
David had his hand on his chin and lowered it when Lorenzo finished. He was irritated because he didn’t want to do what Lorenzo was suggesting, but Lorenzo steered the boat. David had hoped to go back to Gaudí’s lifetime to experience him as a working artist. “I’ll follow your advice, of course, but I didn’t think that was what we’d do today. What if this were to be my last session?”
“You will decide whether you want to do more work. Is it a problem for you because of the distance?”
“No, I’ll be visiting Sarah and my granddaughter three or four times this year. But regarding the direction we take, do you mind explaining a bit more about why you want to access a lifetime that heavily impacted Gaudí?” He closely watched Lorenzo’s quizzical expression. There was a thoughtful pause . . .
“David. You’re a very developed man, so to be absolutely frank, guidance told me to bring out the obelisk for both of us. Then as I sat with it yesterday, I had a strong feeling we can’t get further into Gaudí without first picking up something in his background; that is all.”
“Huh.” David relaxed. “Maybe you’re right, since Gaudí felt very repressed to me. Perhaps a shadow locked him up?”
“Precisely. Frequently we have those kinds of shadows, and penetrating them often lays bare the soul’s choices. We’re layered like onions. If you’re comfortable about taking this approach, let’s do it.”
Still, David was slightly annoyed, but he figured Lorenzo knew a lot more than he did. He took a closer look at the clear obelisk laced with wonderful planes, occlusions, and wispy, lacy fields that resembled nebulae. “It’s beautiful.” Then he reclined on the couch.
“Now, breathing with me, allow yourself to let go and tell me what is so beautiful about the obelisk?”
“All the interior fields,” he said feeling suddenly so drowsy he thought he’d fall asleep. He slurred, “Whole universes in crystalline fields, cosmic forms mysteriously transferred to Earth.”
“Yes, that is so. Ah, your voice sounds different. Who is speaking please?” Lorenzo was astonished by how easily David went into trance.
A very low, ponderous, and pompous voice responded. “Well, you Lorenzo, you don’t really know about these things. I figured things out first.”
“Oh, well great, and where are you by the way?”
“I am in Palma, Majorca, and I figured it all out with my wheels. I can take all the ideas ever thought by humans since the beginning of time, arrange them and spin them, and then I know all things.” David rattled on describing a very arcane alchemical system that Lorenzo couldn’t follow so he broke in.
“Ahem, would you please share your name with us?”
David flexed his shoulders, stiffed out his legs, and said loudly, “Yes, Ramòn Llull.”
“Oh?” Lorenzo responded in a voice dripping with curiosity while his mind was going a mile a minute because now he knew why he couldn’t understand what David was talking about. Llull was an early medieval computational thinker who is thought of today as the first computer scientist. Lorenzo knew very little about him. “What is the purpose of these fascinating wheels? That is, what do you do with them?”
“I invented this system to convert the infidel—Muslims and Jews who didn’t recognize the Messiah when he was here.”
“Did it work? That is, did you convert them?” He was watching David very closely because his body was tightening, jerking, and coming close to convulsing.
“A few, but they killed me for it. They did! They killed me.”
Lorenzo stroked the obelisk while staring at an intense geometrical form hovering above David, eerie, like a humming spaceship. “Would you like to tell me about that sad day? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Geometrical light forms vibrated the forms and fissures in his obelisk threatening to shatter it, so he surrounded it with both hands as it got hot.
“It’s bad, really bad because it didn’t end there,” David said writhing. “Angry Muslims are stoning me in the street in Tunisia . . . Rocks bruise my ribs, my back, my legs, and one hits me in the chest, then another one above my right eye as I fall. They left me laying there in the street like a pulpy bloody mess for the dogs, but I didn’t die. A woman took me to her house. She washes me, anoints me, and oh . . . my . . . God . . . it’s Rose, my wife now. I wanted to die, I really did, but her comfort was so divine that I lingered and lingered with her. I never felt such love, openhearted mother’s love.”
“When did you die?” Lorenzo asked gently.
“Later, a year later, but that was not the problem. When I died, Antoni Gaudí died in the streets in Barcelona. I died twice at the same time, so I don’t know anything about Gaudí.”
Lorenzo knitted his brow as he realized that for some odd reason, these two deaths were simultaneous in David’s psyche, maybe because both traumas happened in the street, an ugly death for anybody. Yes, this could block David’s access to Gaudí’s whole lifetime. “Let us go to Gaudí as a young boy, maybe even a baby. Let us see how Gaudí felt after being stoned for proselytizing during his previous life as Ramòn Llull.”
David jerked, then lay still and said nothing for many minutes. “I’m so heavy, Lorenzo. Can’t you lighten me?”
“Just stay with the density and don’t worry. This is how it feels when you access a blocked part of yourself; breathe and let I happen.” There was a longer pause as David felt like he was turning to stone and felt terrified.
“Oh, how delightful,” David suddenly said in a childlike, happy voice. “I’m by a stream in the gorge close to my home by the sea near Tarragona. I’m playing with my friends in the water on lovely smooth stones. I’m a totally happy young boy. The Church makes us all feel guilty, responsible, depressed, too fixed and determined, so we play in the streams and forest as much as we can. Llull shadowed me even when I was a boy because I’m not devout enough for him, don’t pray enough, won’t sacrifice enough for him. He blocks me because his mind is like an efficient machine—robotic. I escape him when I create, especially when I design things that are alive like nature. His brain is so logical, it constricts me. He thinks he knows so much, so I make beautiful things out of tiles, shells, trees, and bon
es. I banish him with beauty.”
“Okay, David. Would you please ask Llull what he wants of Gaudí? If he will tell us?”
The low, heavy voice came back again. “You are the one, Gaudí, who converts people. I never could do it and died for trying. You are the one who is doing it. You came back and realized that beauty is what leads people to God, not logic. Logic only leads to traps, and they murdered me because they hated my traps.”
“Ramòn Llull, when Gaudí died, did you finally die too?”
“Yes, but the part of me that would not die was my heart because it opened when that lovely woman cared for me, that woman, David’s wife. Listen to me very carefully because this will be hard to understand: that woman’s love was my source of love during my life as Gaudí. She was my muse, who poured love into me while I created. I had feelings of outrageous joy that were unknown to Ramòn Llull except during the last year of his life. And in this life, I have my love with Rose; I’ve never needed anything more.”
A huge field of pink light surrounding David was moving Lorenzo into a trance. “It is time, David. We’ve found what we need to know. The life that shadowed Gaudí, Ramòn Llull, has released you. It is time to come back.”
They were in the alcove again. David was thoughtful and nonverbal, so Lorenzo began. “That was lovely and also very interesting. We didn’t really explore Llull much; we may not need to. While he was around, my brain felt like a computer clogged with spinning, complex programs. Maybe Llull developed a huge and integrated data bank, a cosmology that Gaudí expressed in his art. Do you resonate with that idea?”
“It’s the wheels. I couldn’t see what they were, but I could feel their simultaneous interactions. It was like having the Kabbalah spinning in my brain, which may be why I respond to the Kabbalah. As Gaudí, I could feel myself always trying to express those complex, interactive spinning fields. I could actually feel myself making those structures spin together into the design of a building, and then I cloaked them in beauty. Things had to flow, be round, and covered with gorgeous materials, just like the beautiful smooth quartz stones sparkling in my childhood river. The spinning wheels were contained by the beauty of the buildings and churches I designed, yes.”
Lorenzo laughed heartily and said, “I have to mention something to you. Llull was born and died in Majorca in the fourteenth century just when the Palma Cathedral was being built. Then in the nineteenth century, Gaudí was brought there to completely redo its interior! How’s that for a coincidence? I mean, David, Llull would have seen the early stages of the construction of that cathedral, probably at least the bones of it, and then he got to decorate it later in another lifetime as Gaudí!”
“That is something to think about, isn’t it? Thank you, Lorenzo. Just imagine what Gaudí must have felt when he worked on it. I think we went about this in just the right way today, you were right. I’ll come to see you after I’ve gone to Barcelona. Maybe I need to go to Majorca, too!”
22
Meeting the Medici
A white Rolls Royce Corniche carrying three passengers glided up the road to Castel Vetulonia. Pietro waited in Armando’s studio while Guido showed the other driver where to park and then led the three to the tower door.
Matilda was on the balcony opposite the tower enjoying the morning sun. She had distant Medici relatives, so she wondered whether she’d recognize anybody amongst the people who worked for the mysterious Medici foundation that ran the Uffizi, Medici chapels, the Academy, Bargello, and other places created by the Medici. There was always so much gossip about the glamorous Medici lifestyle—houses, travel, fashion, and parties—yet few knew how they ran the foundation. Even Pietro knew very little, but that didn’t matter when he put out the call for the members to come see Armando’s painting. She heard feet shuffling along the stone pathway below, raised her bright blue eyes above the top of her book, and watched.
Guido was first in line with three people following behind—two men in business suits and an elegant, tall, willowy woman in fashionable attire. Matilda watched them closely when they turned sideways as Guido opened the door to the tower. She did not recognize anyone.
Pietro was waiting inside by the studio door listening to their soft voices as they came up the stairs on the north side of the ancient square tower. They made it to the top landing and came through the door. “Welcome, welcome. Giovanni. How great to see you here after so many years. Alessandro, you are looking so well, and lovely to see you again, Maria. You are exquisite as always. Here are three chairs for you. Sorry they are not very comfortable; this is Armando’s country studio and he doesn’t get many visitors here.”
“Ah, Pietro, the pleasure is all ours,” murmured Alessandro. “We have all been following Armando’s work with such interest, especially his recent show in Rome. It is so kind of you to invite us to view a painting he kept out of the show. If I understand you correctly, he kept it out because it is very spiritual? But, well, it seems to me all his work is spiritual.”
“Yes, but he had reasons, and you may decide millions must see this painting. I hardly need to remind you of our world situation that threatens art and beauty. ISIS removed its mask when they destroyed Palmyra, the most exquisite Roman site in Syria. If such a thing like that could happen, next some idiot will bomb the Uffizi! Your family has done more for the preservation of art than almost any family or dynasty in human history; now your contributions are more important than ever.”
“I cried when I heard about Palmyra,” said Maria quietly, “a beautiful place. Barbarity sweeps the world again, which sickens me. I thought the Crusades were over.”
Pietro nodded respectfully. “To avoid wasting time because you are all very busy, please allow me say a few things about Armando’s painting, and then we can view it. As I believe you know, our family descends from Fra Angelico, the reason my son is named Armando Angelico Pierleoni. Fra Angelico was a magnificent painter of ethereal light, so we were delighted when Armando showed such promise as an artist in his early twenties. He has developed his work diligently and expertly, is even admired outside Italy. Critics say he is a throwback to the great Renaissance painters, as if he is continuing their alchemical breakthrough.”
“Yes, this is so true, Pietro,” Giovanni interjected. “When I viewed his large triptych in his recent show, I wanted to buy it, but it was already sold. I’m sure my ancestor Cosimo III would have bought it because it depicts the three levels of our earthly existence—hell, purgatory, and heaven—in a modern context. We’ve heard rumors the Vatican got that painting through an anonymous buyer.”
“Ah, unfortunately right,” Pietro replied. “Armando retained the painting we will see today to make sure the Vatican never gets their hands on it, and now he is concerned about its public introduction. As you will see in a moment, Giovanni, it would have been a disaster if the Vatican got this one because it would disappear into a vault. The painting we are going to see today might shock you, so first I’d like to make a few fatherly comments. Of course, all this is in confidence, just as nobody will ever know you came here today.” Pietro paused for a moment to cough. “Well, my son has been a tortured soul. No need to go into the details, since we all are tortured souls after what the Church has done to us for hundreds of years. The interesting thing about Armando, something I believe matters for this painting, is that he went to a new level when he married last year. Marriage has steadied him and intensified his sense of purpose. Once that happened, I began to notice he seemed to be out in other dimensions a lot, rather than just being located only in this solid one.”
The three Medici involuntarily looked at each other simultaneously then resumed their attention on Pietro.
“Last fall I detected a halo around his head during the period when he was executing the painting you are about to see.” Alessandro’s Gucci loafer scraped the floor almost slipping. “Also at that time he seemed to be struggling with turbulent emotions, and then what came next is this painting.” Pietro walked over
to the painting, took off the cloth, and walked back over to stand beside the three of them to see how they would react.
A vacuum occupied the room as if the air had been sucked out of the tower. Maria held her breath with eyes wide; Giovanni was shaking slightly; and Alessandro seemed to be very upset, wringing his hands. All three were fixated on Jesus ascending into the ethereal realm through layers of divine light drawing him upward. Pietro watched Maria’s eyes turn to Mary Magdalene. She twitched when her right hand rose up involuntarily to point at the bee. Alessandro and Giovanni’s heads turned to Mary Magdalene, and then all four of them fell into deep silence. Pietro fell in so totally that Alessandro’s voice startled him. He came forward to see their faces more closely, hoping they wouldn’t mind. Alessandro’s face was ecstatic, agonized, and wet with tears.
“My God, Pietro. I have waited for the Real Presence my whole life. The love she feels for him is ecstatic, fills my heart with joy. I am transparent, Christ is here with us, now.”
“This is truly extraordinary,” Maria remarked. “How did he get this, how did he do it, paint that active quantum flux above Jesus? What about that bee?”
“That’s what amazes me the most, Maria,” Pietro said as he served them amber grappa in small crystal glasses. “Armando does not lie to me; I would know it if he did. But until I could trust him, I didn’t tell him the secrets. When I asked about that bee, he said he wasn’t aware that he painted it there behind her head until a friend pointed it out! He wanted to paint it over, but she persuaded him not to touch it and told him all about a new book that explores the bee and Artemis.”
“Yes, it is the signal,” Giovanni broke in, a resigned tone in his voice. “We can be frank here, Pietro. We all know you are a key Templar researcher; you’ve kept your family secrets and passed them to your first son. That’s why we were happy to come today, especially since you’ve never asked us before. But, the goddess Artemis and the bee, that’s our family secret, and I believe not yours? Of course, if you say your branch has retained this knowledge, we will believe you. But I thought we each had separate strands through all the generations to avoid detection by the Inquisition. It was too dangerous for any one person to know too much, but that is changing. The three of us know what this painting means. Armando has depicted the tipping point between the dark and the light, just when we are nearly exhausted by the dark dominance, the world soaked in rampant evil.”
Revelations of the Aquarian Age Page 22
